Slashdot Mirror
Reading/Writing Chinese Using Linux?
Rimbo asks: "I'm building a computer for a friend, who has three major requirements from his system: He wants an Athlon with a 333MHz FSB, he wants absolutely no Microsoft software anywhere near it, and he needs the ability to read and edit Chinese. I imagine Red Flag Linux has great Chinese support, but is it as easy to use as a desktop OS as Mandrake or Red Hat? How easy is Chinese text editing and entry under the major distributions? What "office" software for Linux is good for editing Chinese? Thanks!"
Google is your friend.
m l
http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Chinese-HOWTO.ht
The chinese how-to will tell you what most of the software does. It's at the usual place - http://www.tldp.org.
Mandrake comes with
1. chinese input (both big5 and gb) with xcin.
2. cjk latex for editing (if you already know how to use latex, of course)
3. mozilla is big 5 (gb?) aware already
4. there's a chinese shell somewhere on the disk
5. emacs works with big5 input without xcin.
Fonts, locales and even some manpages and howtos also comes with the distribution. The only thing I haven't got working is actually displaying chinese in the title bars and window manager toolbars.
They were one of the first general Linux distros with DBCS support and the product has simplified and traditional Chinese support.
I'm using Debian with working Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Basically you have you sort out locale packages, fonts, and then inputing method (XIM), and lastly the apps you want to use chinese.
For locale, most distributions include proper and working locale packages. So all you have to do is install them. Locale packages are related to glibc btw. The way locale packages work has changed a bit from glibc 2.1 to 2.2. But anyway both work well.
And then for fonts. Most of the time, you need both X fonts (.bdf files) and truetype fonts. Both are quite easy to get on the net if your distribution of Linux doesn't include them. They are all in Debian, for example. And I think a chinese distribution like RedFlag will include a bunch of them.
For chinese, I use xcin for inputing. It supports big5 and gb encoding, and also all sorts of common inputing method, such as changjei, bopomofo, cantonese, etc. There are also people developing custom inputing method you can use with xcin, such as smartcj
Finally, applications to use. To start with, I think it's a must to have a terminal which works with the language you need. For example, I have crxvt (chinese rxvt). And so I can run all sort of text based programs with chinese working straight away.
Most of the time all you need is to do:
export LANG=zh_TW.Big5 XMODIFIERS=@im=xcin
for your environment. Run the inputing method, and then run your applications. Most applications will work pretty well with XIM.
For office software, I've tried Openoffice.org only, with inputing working. Sometimes it is buggy, but usable. As long as you have truetype fonts installed and Openoffice.org knows about those fonts, you're sorted. Printing works straight away too. While, Staroffice doesn not work properly with XIM, for some reasons.
I haven't tried any chinese linux distribution, but I imagine they might be even much more easier to setup for chinese.
Just a note for Japanese and Korean. I have kinput2 with canna server, kterm for Japanese. hanterm and ami for Korean. Both kinput2 and ami work with Openoffice.org, too.
If you have the source, you have the whole world...
I have set up a Chinese environment under Debian - it works beatifully, easily better than any Chinese input/output system under Windows. The key ingredients:
/etc/locale.gen includes the zh_CN GB2312 line (or equivalnet Big5 traditional encoding) and run locale-gen
* KDE 2.2.2
* ttf-arphic-* true type fonts (traditional and simplified are available)
* XCIN, with a little tweaking to get it working properly - does Pinyin input, which most people prefer
* locales - make sure your
* environment variables - there is a Debian Chinese HOWTO which tells you what you need to set.
The key thing is the fonts (turn on anti-aliasing in KDE, make sure your X windows is set up to support this). The Arphic AA fonts look utterly magnificent, easily the best chinese fonts around. KDE supports X input (i.e. XCIN) quite happily, so you can use KOffice etc. and type in Chinese without a problem.
One of these days I'll get around to writing a HOWTO to explain exactly how it works - if you want details, pester me by e-mailing daniel at ieee dot uow dot edu dot au.
Notwithstanding all the "Linux trolls" who post "search Google" and "Here's a Chinese input project, it must be good," Linux just can't do Chinese (or Japanese) now.
Let's put this in perspective. I've been Microsoft-free personally for about 5 years now. Both my laptops and all my workstations (at home and work) run Linux. That's about five machines running Linux now. I'm very happy.
My wife knows nothing about computers. She doesn't know Windows, she doesn't know Linux. So I can install Linux for her, right? Wrong.
Because Chinese input for Linux simply isn't as good as Microsoft Win2K.
As the parent points out, the Microsoft Asian-input methods are well-thought out. They allow you to seamlessly shift into and out of English and Chinese (and Japanese).
Chinese itself has at least three major input methods, each of which is a long, complicated process to implement. My wife reads/writes "Traditional Chinese" (what they read/write in Taiwan) as opposed to "Simplified Chinese" (what they read/write in China and what Red Flag Linux certainly only supports).
Microsoft Win2K handles all Chinese and Japanese input methods so well that my wife and others who are actually from Mainland China are all happy.
Linux doesn't seem to make anyone happy.
Sure, there are projects out there. As the Linux Troll with a highly-rated comment mentioned earlier, "Search Google!" -- yeh, you'll get tons of hits, and every one of them will be a waste of your time.
Maybe in another year or two.
I'd be happy if someone who's actually used Chinese input on Linux and Win2K tell me there's something as good for Linux. I'll try it in a heartbeat. I've been waiting YEARS to get my wife off of Windows.
Note: All this rant doesn't say much about Chinese *OUTPUT* -- Linux seems to display Big5 (traditional) and other Chinese/Japanese just fine. It's the input that's not ready yet.
fifth sigma, inc.